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This October, many XOOTIC members came together to celebrate the 30th lustrum of PDEng Software Technology (OOTI) at a symposium. The overarching topic was “Smart Industry” / “Industry 4.0” and we saw speakers on various aspects of this interesting development. In addition, we had some great lunch and snacks to accompany the breaks, in which XOOTIC members and OOTI staff caught up with each other. In short, it was both a great social and learning event for all involved. For more information and some nice pictures, please check out the official PDEng ST Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/TUePDEngST/

As any association, we have to comply to GDPR and are taking steps to do so. The purpose for XOOTIC to hold your data is being able to contact you and we have sent out a message in the newsletter with the exact details and steps you can take. In short: We removed all unnecessary data from our database and made sure it is stored securely with a limited amount of people that have access to it. Of course, we will do our best to respond quickly to requests for changes in the data we hold. If you have any other questions or remarks, feel free to contact us!

We had an amazing weekend experience at the Belgian Ardennes. Taking our cars we got there on a Friday night and prepared for a couple of days full of activities!
We rented bungalows at the Sunclass Holiday Park. These nice and little houses proved to be well equipped for our weekend adventure!

Saturday morning we went to the river at Bomal to pick up the kayaks. In groups of three, most of us navigated the river until Hamoir. The river was fast since it had rained the day before so it presented a bigger challenge than expected. Good thing that we were able to recover the energies invested with a super barbecue in the evening.

On Sunday we went back to Bomal in order to start a cycling track that would take us through the surrounding mountains. Not everyone managed to complete it, but it still was a hard challenge! Good thing that Bomal had a lovely market and a great variety of restaurants to choose the last supper before going back to NL.

Industry 4.0 – How big of a deal is it? This XOOTIC lecture took place in Zwarte Doos, where we had a great buffet dinner and caught up with our fellow XOOTICs. After the lecture, we also had some drinks and discussion about the lecture. In these activities, we mingled and enjoyed, also between generations.

So, Industry 4.0: what does it mean, and how will it affect factories in the future? In this lecture we got the opinion of Jeroen de Bruijn of FESTA. He explained that Industry 4.0 is a must given the developing market needs: I want it now, I want it customized to my needs, and I want you to take care of the service. Of course, not every product, e.g. a pack of milk, fits directly in that category. The main trend is expected to be: more local and flexible factories, where data is the new oil.

FESTA, together with Unity040 and CORDIS , attempts to provide a tool-chain to do complete software-based development before hardware manufacturing. As XOOTIC we voiced some concerns here: we cannot measure everything in physics e.g. an ASML machine, even formally proven pieces of code can fail in a new context, and most importantly: where are the practical examples? How do you think this will continue: what part can we do digital-only, and what part will we always need a physical prototype for?

I am happy so many of you (almost 40!) turned up for this lecture, and that you enjoyed both the social aspect and the lecture content. Next time, let’s do it even better with the help of your survey input! Hope to see you all then.